The coffee house's opening Wednesday at 700 Sevier Ave. generated a fair amount of media coverage, because (a) java joints are fun and popular, and (b) Honeybee Coffee is situated squarely in the middle of the commercial corridor that runs parallel to the South Waterfront.
There's a high energy level along both Sevier Avenue and the South Waterfront, and the momentum is accelerating.

Last year, the City’s $6.6 million Suttree Landing Park and Waterfront Drive opened on the South Waterfront, just a few blocks to the north of Honeybee Coffee. Further to the east, the River’s Edge 134-unit apartment complex opened. This $14 million private investment, supplemented with a $2.5 million investment in new public infrastructure, included an 800-foot public riverwalk.

Possibly by the end of this year, the Riverwalk at the Bridges apartments will open at the former Baptist Hospital site, and the $12 million renovation of a former medical office building at the foot of the Gay Street Bridge is continuing. Regal Entertainment Group and its 400 employees could move in as early as late 2017.

But this week, the hoopla is over Honeybee Coffee. Aficionados can sample Guatemalan, Ethiopian, Colombian and Haitian brews.

The City aided the redevelopment of 700 Sevier Ave. by investing $50,000 through a Commercial Façade Program grant - one of four properties being improved up and down the street with grant assistance. (The City's $202,000 total investment on the Sevier Avenue façade improvements has benefitted a computer services store, a restaurant, a brewery and Honeybee.) The owners of the 700 Sevier Ave. building contributed $63,745 of their own money for the façade work, which included window replacement, a new storefront, a new accessible
entrance and brick façade repair.

For details on the City's Commercial Façade Program, and a handful of dramatic "before" and "after" photos, click here.